what santa brought to our room at circus circus in vegas...


almost 9 am and i've been waiting for the boys [in the adjoining room] to wake up for some time now. guess i really did have them convinced there would be "NO" christmas...i'm the one who can't quite go all that far.

see their stockings? hand knit, personalized christmas stockings is a tradition started by my mother in 1947 with the birth of my oldest brother. each person married into or born to a member of our family has one, complete with name and date of birth. See how Bekah's is hung off the TV cabinet? the first year without her as christmas approached it was her stocking that rocked me to my toes. i dreaded opening up the cedar chest to fetch their stockings because there was no longer a purpose for bekahs, or a daughter to sit on the floor unloading her stocking for hours.

so i turned it into a mailbox. that first year my yahoo group "bekah" was quite active yet and i posted a request for friends and family to write their feelings for her stocking. since then, when i find a note at her grave i tuck it into her stocking, and i've continued to write to her each christmas - different from other days, a letter to bekah for the express purpose of putting it into her christmas stocking.

i wonder if this is portrayed as pathetic or sad...for me, it is a grief recovery aid. what was i going to do, burn or discard bekah's christmas stocking? here's this tangible reminder of the daughter whose absence is a dark hole within my consciousness in the space she owns forever. i hang her stocking there, and hope it pleases bekah as much as it does her mother.

anyhow, hopefully soon i will have other pictures to share: rory's face when he gets his surprise...andy's eyes when he sees what santa brought...yee ah ah aha. how can they keep on sleeping so long?


- posted by barbara @ 12/25/2004 08:51:00 AM